Cartoon Network Arabia

Tarek Mounir Promoted to Vice President Of Turner Turkey And Middle East: From The Turner EMEA Press Release

Turner Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) today announced that Tarek Mounir is promoted to vice president and general manager Turkey, Middle East, North Africa, Greece & Cyprus.

Giorgio Stock, president Turner EMEA, said:

“This promotion recognises Tarek’s role in aggressively developing Turner’s presence in the region and driving significant growth, across both free to air and pay TV platforms and in the non-linear space.”

Rani Raad, president, CNN International Commercial, said:

“Tarek has done an outstanding job of building strong teams whose creativity and enterprise across Turner’s expanding Middle East portfolio have helped drive an overall growth trajectory in an increasingly important market.”

Under Tarek Mounir’s leadership, Turner has grown its channel footprint across kids, news and general entertainment, seen a sustained period of robust ad sales growth, engaged audiences with its growing brands, and developed a successful local content strategy through hits like Emirati cartoon Mansour in the UAE and Kral Sakir in Turkey. Mounir was hugely instrumental in innovative deals such as the soon-to-open Cartoon Network theme park zone, as well as the creation of Cartoon Network Studios Arabia. He also has revitalised the Turkey business since taking it over 18 months ago. Tarek Mounir will be reporting into Giorgio Stock.

Turner Signs Cartoon Network Distribution Deal With beIN

This week, it was announced that Turner Broadcasting System Europe have signed a distribution deal with beIN Media Group to allow its channels to be available on their DTH (Direct-To-Home) satellite television platform. The distribution deal includes Cartoon Network, Boomerang, TCM (Turner Classic Movies), HLN (Headline News) and CNN HD which will be available to beIN subscribers from Friday 1st January. beIN Media is known in the Middle East area for its wide coverage of sporting events, the addition of Turner’s kids and entertainment channels will add more variety to beIN’s pay-tv packages.

From Saturday 16th January 2016, Turner’s channels (including Cartoon Network Africa, Cartoon Network Arabia, Boomerang Africa, Turner Classic Movies and CNN International) will no longer be available on OSN (Orbit Showtime Network) after Turner stated that the channels are no longer negotiable for channel renewal on the satellite platform and approached beIN to do a new deal instead.

Rani Raad, MD, Turner Middle East, North Africa and Turkey made this statement regarding the new partnership with beIN Media:

“We are pleased to announce our exclusive partnership with beIN Media Group in the Middle East and North Africa region. Together with beIN Media Group, we’re expanding our reach to cater to the needs of audiences across the region. Subscribers to the network can enjoy unlimited access to news, movies and animation via our world-class broadcast channels and entertainment offering. Globally, Turner has a widespread reach; our exclusive partnership with beIN Media Group’s DTH distribution network allows us to further widen access to our channels across the Middle East region and key North Africa markets. We are confident that this partnership will prove beneficial to existing and potential subscribers”

Yousef Al-Obaidly, Deputy CEO of beIN Media Group states the addition of Turner’s channels will help improve their new entertainment portfolio of channels:

“In November, as we launched beIN’s entertainment portfolio we had committed to our subscribers that we will partner with leading global brands to bring them the best of global entertainment. Our partnership with Turner is a solid step in that direction. Turner channels are gold-standard in kids’ entertainment and news and beIN is really excited to bring these channels exclusively to its subscribers.”

After a pause of a few months, rollout of the new website design for Cartoon Network feeds in the Europe, Middle East and Africa region has continued. Over the last couple of weeks, Cartoon Network Russia has new the website design as well as Cartoon Network France, Cartoon Network Poland and the website for Cartoon Network Spain. This now leaves Cartoon Network Germany, Cartoon Network Italy, Cartoon Network Arabia and Cartoon Network UK & Ireland to change to the new website design.

The website design originated from DMT Latin America, a division of Turner Broadcasting System responsible for developing websites for the company in the Latin American market and is also used on the Latin American Cartoon Network websites. The website design was rolled out to smaller markets first, starting with Portugal and several Nordic and Eastern Europe countries such as Sweden, Denmark, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria.